Senior Staff

ROY A. WALTER, Senior Rabbi

Rabbi Roy A. Walter has been Senior Rabbi Congregation Emanu El since 1978. He came to Emanu El following his ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1970. A native of Memphis, Rabbi Walter received his a B.A. from Tulane University and Bachelor and Master of Hebrew Letters, as well as Doctor of Divinity degrees from HUC-JIR in Cincinnati.

Rabbi Walter is the co-author of Gates of Prayer for Young People published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis. He serves on the faculty of St. Thomas University under the auspices of the Jewish Chautauqua Society and is a member of the Joint CCAR-UAHC Commission on Social Action.

Rabbi Walter served as president of Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston from 1996-98. He is a past president of the Southwest Association of Reform Rabbis. He has served on the Board of ARZA, as a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of the U.J.A. and on the Executive Board and the Liturgy Committee of the CCAR. In addition, he has been a member of the Board of Governors and Board of Rabbinic Overseers of HUC-JIR.

Rabbi Walter is married to the former Linda Cohn of Cincinnati, Ohio. They have three children, Benjamin, Michel, and Aaron.
 

PAMELA B. SILK, Associate Rabbi

Rabbi Pamela B.Silk was born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1974 and was raised in the Detroit area. Pam attended the Interlochen Arts Camp and Academy for high school, where she played the viola. She studied biology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where she completed her Bachelors Degree in Science in 1997. An aspiring physician, she changed her life focus late into college. Pam entered Rabbinical School in the summer of 1998 and spent her first year in Israel.

While a student at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Pam served as a student rabbi in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Sumter, South Carolina. Most recently she has served as the Rabbinic Intern at Congregation B'nai Jehudah in Kansas City. In addition to her pulpit work, she completed 400 hours of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak Michigan. She earned her Masters in Hebrew Letters (MHL) in 2001 and was ordained in Cincinnati in May, 2003. From leading a creative writing workshop for inmates in a Michigan prison to visiting elderly and disabled shut-ins in Kansas City, Pam has always been passionate about caring for those that society often leaves behind.

Pam is married to Jeffrey Silk who is an elementary school teacher. She enjoys classical music, watching movies, and cooking.
 

ROBERT HAAS, Associate Rabbi

Rabbi Haas is a native of McAllen, Texas, the fourth generation to have lived in this small border town. After graduating from McAllen High School, he enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin where he received a B.S. in Elementary Education in 1991. After serving as a public school teacher at Cloverleaf Elementary School in Houston, Rabbi Haas moved to the desert town of Arad, Israel, where he studied various aspects of Judaism at the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) Institute. Shortly after completing this program, he entered Hebrew Union College as a rabbinical student, and in May of 2002, was ordained in the first Reform Rabbinical Class on the West Coast.

Rabbi Haas has over 15 years of experience as a religious school teacher and youth group leader and has spent 11 summers working at various Jewish camps. His student pulpits included Temple Bat Yam, Lake Tahoe and Hillel Director, Occidental University, Los Angeles.

Upon completion of his rabbinic studies, Rabbi Haas returned to Texas and spent the first four years of his rabbinate as the Assistant and then Associate Rabbi of Temple Shalom in Dallas, where he worked with people of all ages and in a variety of areas, including: Youth Groups, Baby Namings, Bar and Bat Mitzvah, Young Adults, Caring Congregation, Outreach (Interfaith), Prayer, Holiday Programming, Religious School, Adult Study Courses, Weddings, and Religious Counseling. He also participated in the Dallas Community, serving as a Board Member of A.J. Congress and The Network of Community Ministries, working closely with such organizations as The Federation's Young Adult's Division, AIPAC, The Texas Freedom Network, Thanksgiving Square and The Foundation For Pluralism.
 

VADIM I. TUNITSKY, Cantor

Vadim Tunitsky, Cantor of Congregation Emanu El since 1995, was invested at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion School of Sacred Music in 1993.

Cantor Tunitsky came from Russia where he received dual bachelors and masters degrees in Engineering from Kharkov Polytechnical Institute. He graduated with honors in violin music in 1980 from Kharkov Musical College and entered the Kharkov School of Arts, graduating with honors in vocal arts in 1985.

In 1988 Cantor Tunitsky left Russia in search of a better future for himself and his family. His gained an early exposure to Jewish music at the Moscow Chamber Jewish Theater. He enrolled at HUC-JIR where he realized his dream of becoming a cantor and singing the music he had come to love. After his investiture, his first pulpit was at Temple Emanuel in Patterson, New Jersey.

He has performed throughout the New York and Houston metropolitan areas and has sung at the President's Day Interfaith Celebration in Washington, D.C.

Cantor Tunitsky is married to the former Rita Finkelstein also from Russia and they have two children.
 

BURT DUBOWY, Executive Director


MYRA LIPPER, Program Director


MARNA MEYER, Religious School Director


PAULA KATZ, Early Childhood Director